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Lord Takanashi Otoharu had already written seven furious letters to the king by the time he got a response.
It wasn’t that surprising. The neighboring country was in disarray due to the disappearance of their crown prince, who was widely believed to have eloped with his manservant, and there were rumors of a war brewing, but that didn’t change the fact that, for the first time in nearly a century, all of the most powerful blood magicians were gathering, and they were gathering, for whatever reason, in an inn on Takanashi’s lands, in the woods a little over a mile from his manor.
Blood magicians were a dangerous sort; wherever they gathered, trouble was soon to follow, and after they left, they would leave behind a nasty vampire infestation. While they were in town, too, people and livestock would be stolen for their unholy sacrifices, and only sometimes returned, though never unharmed. In years past, keeping them under close watch had been one of King Yaotome’s top priorities, but he was now far more focused on their neighboring country’s misfortune–a huge mistake, in Otoharu’s eyes, since clearly, they were about to make some sort of move.
However, Yaotome had finally written that he and his son were coming down to investigate, and so Otoharu hoped that they would arrive in time to stop whatever plan the blood magicians came up with.
Still, though, he had a young daughter to take care of, and so, about a week after the arrival of the blood magicians, he did a sweep of the forest immediately behind his house, where he stumbled upon what appeared, at first glance, to be the corpse of a young man.
He was lying in a pool of his own blood, deep cuts lining his limbs. His dark blue hair was overgrown and matted, and his clothes looked like he had been wearing them for several bloody weeks, hanging loose and dirtied against his nearly-skeletal frame. His skin was translucent from lack of blood, and his veins stood stark against his skin–but he was breathing.
An escaped victim of the blood magicians, most probably–Otoharu had to move fast, if he wanted to save the boy’s life. He knelt in the bloody leaves next to him and quickly started using whatever he could to bandage the cuts. As he did so, the boy stirred.
“I need to…break the curse…” he mumbled. “I need…”
Some of the blood leaking from the boy’s arm vanished into gold light.
Otoharu froze. This young man–he was a blood magician?! But his wounds…and it had clearly been his own blood that he had used for his magic…
Not all of his wounds were self-inflicted, though: that Otoharu could clearly see. The blood magician was young, and seemed to be harmless, and at the very least, he might have information that Otoharu could pass along to the king in order to take care of the other blood magicians.
“Shh, don’t do that,” Otoharu said. “You’re only hurting yourself. What’s your name?”
The young blood magician blinked up at him. “Ogami…Banri…” he said. “The curse…I need to break the curse, I need to…”
“Banri,” said Otoharu. “You need to stop hurting yourself. You can’t break any curse if you’re dead, after all.”
Banri looked up at him, his eyes a sad, crystalline blue. “I couldn’t break it…I’m sorry, Yuki…I’m…sorr…”
His eyes rolled back and closed, and his already shallow breaths became almost imperceptible. Otoharu swore, and picked Ogami Banri up, bolting back to his manor. He sent one of the stableboys running into town to get the doctor, and by the time the man came, Ogami was in a guest room, with several of his numerous wounds bandaged.
Luckily, the young blood magician lived, though he remained asleep. He did not wake in the week and a half it took Yaotome and his men to arrive, and when Otoharu and Yaotome traveled to the inn where the blood magicians were staying, they found it abandoned.
The front door was hanging open, streaked with blood, and corpses were strewn around the building, all totally drained of blood. In fact, the only blood in the building was on the door, looking as though someone, bleeding heavily, had scrabbled against it, before opening it and stumbling out, leaving behind only a trail of bloody footprints.
Otoharu thought the footprints must have belonged to Ogami, though he didn’t mention that to the king. He hadn’t told him about the young blood magician at all, other than the fact that he believed he’d found an escaped victim of the blood magicians, barely alive, in the forest behind his house.
“Vampires will probably infest the area soon,” Yaotome said, looking around at the rotting corpses of the most wicked criminals in the country with disgust. “I do hope you won’t be asking for some of my men to clear them out.”
“The people living in these lands are your people, too,” Otoharu told him. “I do not have the manpower on my own to clear out a vampire infestation. People will die if you don’t help!”
“I have larger priorities at the moment,” Yaotome said, and Otoharu scoffed. “However, I will stay for a month in case something terrible does happen.”
“It takes half a year for vampires to fully manifest, and you know it,” Otoharu told him. “You’re–”
“Gentleman, I believe I may be of some assistance?” came a voice. Otoharu and Yaotome turned to see a creature in the shape of a man standing before them, holding a rose.
“And who, pray tell, are you?” asked Yaotome, drawing his sword.
“I am the fairy Kujo,” the creature said. “And I have a compromise for you to make, as thanks for taking that irritating little blood magician boy out of my hair: three weeks ago I took a human child for my own from this town. This child does not want to see the town destroyed, and so: I will loan the child to you, King Yaotome, and in that time you have him your kingdom will prosper and, if the fates so will it, you shall gain the upper hand against your neighbors. And once the child is satisfied with the safety of this town, he will be returned to me and you will return to your throne, more powerful and prosperous than you left it. And for you, Lord Takanashi…” He held out the rose. “If at any moment you feel that King Yaotome is breaking his end of the deal, simply describe his behavior and give him the rose. Do we have a deal?”
“We do,” said King Yaotome, before Otoharu could get a word in edgewise, and the fairy vanished, the flower appearing in Otoharu’s hand.
“I don’t trust this,” said Otoharu.
“Why not?” said Yaotome. “It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”
The king turned and left before Otoharu could give an answer.
It was a week later that the young blood magician woke, if you could call it waking. His eyes opened, and he stared hopelessly at the ceiling, but Otoharu didn’t hear a word from him for nearly another month as his wounds slowly healed into pink scars and he stopped looking so much like a skeleton.
Then, one day, that changed.
Otoharu’s ten year old daughter, Tsumugi, had been explicitly banned from entering the blood magician’s room, so when Otoharu decided to drop in at a time he’d normally be meeting with advisors, he was surprised to hear his daughter’s voice coming from the room.
She was telling a story about her rabbit, Kinako, and some of the trouble the two had gotten into in the gardens the other day, and throughout the story, the quiet, low voice of Ogami Banri would ask questions, or comment, or laugh at a funny part. The story was already wrapping up when Otoharu had arrived, so he didn’t have a chance to step in before Tsumugi said, “Now remember, you can’t say a word about this or anything to anyone, okay? I don’t want to get in trouble.”
“I remember,” Ogami assured her. His voice was still quiet, and hoarse from disuse. “I won’t say a word to anyone. I promise.”
Otoharu opened the door. “Tsumugi,” he said. “I told you that you’re not allowed to come in here, didn’t I?”
“Dad!” Tsumugi said, jumping. “Um…I…made a wrong turn? I’ve never come in here before, honest!”
Ogami looked alarmed. “Never? But I thought I saw…”
“Shh! You didn’t! I’ve totally never ever ever ever come in here! Promise!”
Ogami started looking even more alarmed.
Otoharu folded his arms. “You aren’t lying to me, are you, Tsumugi?” he asked. “Because from what I heard, it sounded like you come in here often.”
“I don’t!” she said. “Banri, you tell him!”
“...But you said I wasn’t to speak to anyone but you,” Ogami reminded her.
Otoharu raised his eyebrows.
“What? No, I said you weren’t supposed to tell anyone I was coming to visit you and read you stories and stuff!” Tsumugi paused. “Which I definitely haven’t been doing.”
Ogami paused. “Are you…lying…?” he asked slowly.
Tsumugi stared at him incredulously. “Yes?” she said. “Wow, you really don’t know anything at all, do you!”
Otoharu frowned. “Tsumugi, what do you mean?” he asked.
“Oh, Banri has amnesia,” she said matter-of-factly. “He says he doesn’t remember anything before you found him in the forest. He remembers what he said then, but not what it meant or anything. He thinks he saw a fairy saying that he’d lose his memories if anyone ever helped him with his goals, though, so I think since we helped him not die that’s why he doesn’t remember anything.”
Otoharu paused. “A fairy,” he repeated. “What did this fairy look like?”
Ogami looked at Tsumugi.
“You’re allowed to speak!” she assured him. “You can talk to whoever you want. I was just asking you to keep my secrets!”
“I see,” he said. He looked back at Otoharu. “He was…tall, with greasy black hair. I hated him, though…I don’t know why. I said…I said that I wouldn’t stop hunting him down, because he’d taken my best friend from me…he said that I could try, but the moment I received help of any sort I’d lose all my memories, and I wouldn’t be able to regain them without an act of true love from the two people I’d loved and abandoned…which would never happen, because he claimed there was no such thing as true love. And then…I don’t remember anything until you found me in the forest.”
Ogami’s face was open and guileless, if upset. Otoharu took a deep breath, and said, “What does blood magic mean to you?”
Ogami tilted his head. “What’s blood magic?” he asked.
“It’s the only sort of magic humans can perform, but it’s super dangerous, and blood magicians hurt people to get the blood they need for their spells,” Tsumugi explained.
“Why not use their own blood?” asked Ogami. “Wouldn’t that be easier…and kinder?”
“Blood magic has to do with desire above all else,” explained Otoharu. “When you’re in pain, it’s harder to get your desire to line up with the spell you're casting.”
“Desire…” Ogami murmured. “I see. But if you could keep your desire through the pain, wouldn’t the spell be stronger?”
“I’m not a blood magician, so I don’t know,” Otoharu told him. “Blood magic is incredibly dangerous for everyone involved. You must never, ever attempt it, do you understand?”
“But if I only spill my blood…”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Otoharu. “It’s all dangerous.”
“But what other purpose could my blood serve?” Ogami asked. “What worth could I possibly have that would outweigh the good I could do by using my blood to perform magic ?”
“You can’t honestly believe that,” said Otoharu.
Ogami frowned. “Why not?”
“Every life has worth, Ogami,” said Otoharu. “Including yours.”
Ogami shook his head. “But…that doesn’t make any sense ,” he said. “My life…how could it be worth anything if I’m not helping people?”
“Your life is worth something because you’re living it,” Otoharu told him. He paused, considered. The way he’d found Ogami and the fairy Kujo’s words were weighing on him; between the fairy who had stolen the Nanase’s older son and wiped Ogami’s memories for being irritating and the broken young man with no memories sitting before him, Otoharu knew which one he liked better, and which he trusted more. “If you want a job where you can help people, I would be more than happy to hire you on as a servant, if we can’t find out who or where your family is.”
“I…I would like that, thank you,” said Ogami. “I don’t know if we could find my family without knowing what caused me to lose my memories, though…”
“I believe it must have been the fairy Kujo,” Otoharu told him.
“You mean Gaku’s dad’s friend?” asked Tsumugi.
“Yes,” Otoharu said. “I’ve mistrusted the fairy for a while now…I think I’ve finally realized part of what he’s playing at. Tsumugi, keep an eye on Banri. I’ll return soon enough. I must speak with King Yaotome.”
“Isn’t he having that party tonight, though?” asked Tsumugi.
Otoharu frowned; he and his daughter had not been invited to the party, though Tsumugi had been told about it by Gaku. However, Kujo seemed dangerous enough that it would be a terrible idea to delay warning Yaotome any longer.
“This can’t wait,” he said. “This Kujo is far more dangerous than we thought. The sooner we can put a stop to whatever it is he’s planning, the better off we’ll be.”
Otoharu left Tsumugi with Banri and a few storybooks and rode quickly off towards the castle where Yaotome was staying and having his party. Darkness had fallen quickly, heralded in by the coming storm, and strong winds and rain buffeted him as he rode. When he arrived at the castle, he didn’t bother getting a stableboy to put up his horse; he merely tied it under a tree and rushed inside to speak with the king.
The party was in full swing by the time he arrived, but it seemed like everyone in the room turned to stare at him as he stood in the doorway, sopping wet, Kujo’s rose in one hand, though he did not remember grabbing it on his way out.
“What is the meaning of this?” demanded the king.
“The fairy Kujo is planning something dangerous,” Otoharu told him. “I don’t trust him, and neither should you!”
“I can’t believe this,” scoffed Yaotome. “What possible reason could you have to mistrust him? He’s given both of us what we wanted, didn’t he?”
“Yes, after stealing a child from his family and casting multiple curses,” said Otoharu. “I told you about the boy I found, the one we believed to be a victim of those dead blood magicians? He remembers nothing other than Kujo erasing his memories for being ‘annoying’, and Kujo gave us what we ‘wanted’ after thanking us for getting the blood magicians out of his hair, even though we just discovered their bodies. There is something else going on here, and I want no part in it.”
Yaotome scoffed. “Who cares if Kujo’s plotting something? We’re benefitting from it, so there’s no reason to complain.”
“How can you be so heartless?” asked Takanashi. “If people suffer because of this–”
“People suffer all the time!” argued King Yaotome. “We aren’t directly causing it, so why should we refuse benefits we don’t even know are hurting others?”
“I can’t believe you,” said Takanashi, throwing the rose to the floor at Yaotome’s feet. “You’re such a heartless beast, and I’m sure you’re raising your son to be the same as you! Do as you will–I’ll not have any part in the fairy’s plans any more!”
He whirled around and stormed out of the castle, stepping back into the rain, not noticing the guests vanishing like melting snow, the three boys changing form, stone climbing up and around the king.
And as he rode off into the forest, he forgot that there had ever been a castle and a king there at all, let alone a meddling fairy named Kujo, and, seconds later, so did everyone in the town: including the fairy himself, but excluding a single person: a young man, who had only heard of the king that night and knew little else of the world, a young man who, at that very moment, had sent Takanashi Tsumugi to bed and was attempting to regain his memories in the only way he knew how: through spilling his own blood into magic.